Superfund cleanup in Danvers ready to go

Friday

May 9, 2014 at 11:52 AM

By Anna Burgessaburgess@wickedlocal.comIf you live near the Crane River, head’s up — there’s an EPA cleanup crew coming to a neighborhood near you.Last week, representatives from EPA New England met with Danvers residents at the Polish Club to discuss agency plans for the former Creese & Cook Tannery Superfund site. EPA New England Remedial Project Manager Derrick Golden presented his team’s plans for hazardous waste testing and potential cleanup, as well as gave some history of the tannery site and introduced the project team. Danvers residents brought their questions, and Golden spent the majority of his time answering questions and detailing the work that will begin next month.After an EPA investigation in 2012, "the EPA decided to put the site on the National Priority List for cleanup," Golden explained at the beginning of the presentation.What they’re working with"We’ll start by doing a remedial investigation, and a feasibility study when that’s complete, in three to four years," he said. "It is a process, it takes a while, but the point is that it’s very comprehensive and we want to make sure human health and the environment are protected."Golden is the project manager for the remedial investigation stage of the project, but he also introduced EPA member Gary Waldeck, who will take over as the project manager for the cleanup process itself. EPA partners Nobis Engineering sent several representatives to the Polish Club meeting as well.Golden’s brief history of the site explained how the tannery was operated on both the eastern and western sides of the Crane River. It operated from 1903 to 1914 on the east side of the river, and from 1914 to 1983 on the west side, said Golden. Both arsenic and chromium were frequently used during the tannery’s years of operation."We’ve seen a lot of arsenic contamination, [since] it was used to prepare the hides for hair removal, and the chromium was used for waterproofing of materials," he said. "We have some information that there are still some hides and tannery waste buried here."Golden said that in 2010 and 2011, the EPA conducted an investigation of the eastern side of the river."In 2012, the EPA took out about 450 tons of contaminated material, arsenic and chromium," he said, "and disposed of those off site, and clean landfill was put back in."A thorough investigationGolden explained what this newest investigation, beginning this month, will look like."This phase of the work right now is just going to focus on the eastern side," he said. Because Danvers residents live in that area, "we want to make sure there are no unacceptable exposures."The remedial investigation, Golden said, "determines the horizon and vertical contamination in both groundwater and soil, but is also composed of a human health and ecological risk assessment.""Just because you’re living near a contaminated site doesn’t mean you’ll become sick, [so] what they do is find the areas where the highest contamination is," he explained. "Then, assuming a worst case scenario of exposure to a child or young adult, determine if there’s an unacceptable risk. If there’s an unacceptable risk, that’s what requires a cleanup."Golden said the EPA will do 75 multi-depth soil borings, to get about 600 soil samples. They also plan to take 67 groundwater samples and 15 surface water samples."We need to find out what type of contamination it is, and what levels," he said.The team will be looking at semi-volatile and volatile organic compounds, as well as inorganic compounds like arsenic and chromium, pesticides, and dioxins.Once these investigations are complete, the EPA will look at if, how, and where contamination needs to be cleaned up, as well as the cost of cleanup."We then have to get concurrence from the Massachusetts DEP, and we’ll also present this back to the public," Golden said. "There’s a large public component to this process."Resident inputDuring the meeting’s question-and-answer session, residents had a chance to ask about the upcoming work and its affect on them.Two residents asked about flooding on their properties and raised concerns that this water may have contaminants. One woman mentioned nine inches of water in her basement, while another said there’s a section of her lawn that floods with every storm."We’ll certainly be looking at that, we can look at that in the human heath risk assessment," said Diane Baxter, the project manager for Nobis Engineering. "What the groundwater is doing is one of the biggest questions we have.""Right now we’re proposing 10 [groundwater monitoring] wells," she added. "But we have planned up to another five wells after we get results from those 10, if we see a problem."Baxter said that they will test groundwater horizontally "as far as we need to go to find a clean area." Similarly, in the vertical direction, the plan is to go 16 feet down initially. If there’s contamination there, they will go deeper until they hit clean soil.A woman with the Crane River Marina asked about disturbance to the area during the field work, saying that she was concerned about four years of disturbance.Golden noted that the field work itself will not take four years; the testing equipment will only be on site for four to six weeks."Whatever work we need to do, we basically restore the area to as good as if not better than it was before," he added. "We have to restore it to its original condition."Another Danvers resident asked why it will take three years to come up with a feasibility plan after one year of testing the area."It’s an involved process," Golden said. "If you take a sample today you’re going to get it back in 30 months, they have to do quality control, and then there’s a lot of number crunching to do these risk assessments.""It’s a very complicated process and we want to be thorough," he said.At the end of the meeting, the Polish Club president extended an invitation to the EPA and to Danvers residents to hold any further meetings about the cleanup at the club.